Nick Ashton-Hart
wrote:
I will see who from NCUC is attending Lisbon this time - in view of the
packed policy schedule of the Tuesday meeting though I would suggest that we
simply extend that meeting from 1800 - 1900 if the NCUC are amenable to
meeting during that time.
It is important to say, though, that the
ALAC's admission of applicants and the criteria which it uses to decide
admission actually do not have anything to do with NCUC or any other
constituency - and vice versa. If they were meant to do so the Bylaws would
provide for that to be the case, and they do not. As has been pointed out,
those who qualify for membership in both are entirely welcome at present to
join them both if they wish to do so so - as a result of which there cannot be
any competition for members. That would only be possible if membership in one
constituency precluded membership in the other.
There
are some fundamental differences. NCUC is a regular constituency of the GNSO,
and as such it has a vote in the Name Council, and a scope that is related to
Domain Names. ALAC is an advisory committee to the Board, and as such it has a
Liaison to the Board (non-voting) but a scope that is not limited to the
DNS.
I
might be wrong, but I haven't noticed substantial overlapping in practice, i.e.
I am not aware of many organizations that had the doubt on whether join one or
the other, I would like to know if somebody has practical cases to show me. This
was, by the way, also the subject of my conversation with
Ynternet.org.
As to you second very
good point, the larger context is important as you say - however, the larger
context is a shifting sand with the advent of the ALAC review. Addressing the
functions and and positions of the two constituencies is important, but is an
entirely separate issue from deciding on written criteria for evaluating
membership applications for THIS constituency, since, again, organisations are
free to join both.
Already with the GNSO review we need to tackle this item, as the LSE has
identified the need for a different constituency structure for the GNSO.
Regardless on whether this is going to happen or not, the discussion will have
to address this.
To remind everyone of the current situation, we have an ALS applicant
(Telecommunities Canada) who is waiting on a decision on their application,
which is more overdue every day, and that decision is waiting on ALAC
concluding review of the proposal, subject to amendments of course, on how to
evaluate applications for At-Large especially in certain circumstances. The
decision also affects another application, Communica.ch, which is of long
standing based upon the very same issues.
On the long run, why
should not the RALOs themselves define their acceptance procedure, with
ALAC only ratifying (and in this case I would agree that it should be
default = YES). The problem is that different RALOs will have different
approaches, also to keep the flexibility of the local
situation.
For instance, in Europe we have a fairly typical case
which is the European umbrella organization for national organizations (remember
CECUA?). As of today, the umbrella organization is not permitted to join.
However, the very reason for having an umbrella organization is to avoid
duplication of effort (and cost) by national
bodies.
Another element of difference is individual membership,
which will be allowed for EURALO but not for other RALOs (at least, this is how
it looks as of today). It would not make sense to have the ALAC to have to vote
on each individual application.